Dead Cat Bounce interview

Ireland's favourite comedy rock supergroup Dead Cat Bounce have a couple of London gigs lined-up so we thought we'd put some questions to Mick (keys), Demian (drums), Shane (bass), and James (guitars, lead vocals)...

Hi guys. Perhaps we could start by asking you to give us a bit of your back story. How did you first meet?

Shane put an ad in the paper: "comedy bassist seeks band. No accordions or ukuleles." So we fired our accordion player and the rest is history...

We actually met in University in Dublin where we were all involved in various comedy shows. After we graduated we moved in together, started writing and the first Dead Cat Bounce show followed a couple of months later.

So, at what point did you decide you wanted to do silly and fun lyrics, rather than serious songs?

We've all been in a variety of failed bands prior to Dead Cat Bounce. Damo was in a metal band called Diphtheria who were pioneering a now, thankfully, defunct genre of music called Chaos Metal. Jim was in a sleaze-funk band called Captain Seaweed and the Shagnasties. Shane was in a shit garage band called the Nine Inch Nobs and Mick used to play the piano in a musical society. Put all that together and writing serious songs was never really an option.

Ha ha. Do you have any influences - both in terms of musical comedy acts, and 'serious' music bands?

We're all pretty into 80s hair metal bands like White Snake and Mötley Crüe. They're musically great, but lyrically hilarious. So more than anything else, they're probably the big influences.

Does anyone care to admit what was the first single and album they bought?

Shane: Single - 'Blame it on the Boogie' by Big Fun; Album - Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em by MC Hammer.

Jim: Single - 'I Wanna Sex You Up' by Colour Me Bad. Album - Houses of The Holy by Led Zeppelin.

Mick: Single - 'I Believe I Can Fly' by R Kelly. Album - Now 20.

Demian: Single - 'Zig-Zaggin Around' by Zig and Zag. Album - The Best of 2 Unlimited by 2 Unlimited.

Ouch! You could have pretended you didn't remember! What's your favourite single of all time?

You're the Voice by John Farnham. We covered it for the last Late'N'Live at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year with a bagpipe player named Jock (seriously) and it completely kicked off. 400 people went absolutely mental. It's a powerful song.

Changing the subject: do any of you actually play golf?

Not often and certainly not well. You can actually watch Jim hitting his first ever golf ball in our Golf video. He decided to wait until there was a full camera crew and 60 extras watching rather than practice privately. He shanked it.

We love that video! You've toured all over the world, from Montreal to Melbourne. Do audiences react the same world-over, or do you notice any cultural differences as you move between countries?

They're quite PC in Canada. They didn't really like our song Midget, which is about the urge to pick up a midget and see how far you can run with them. They're kind of the opposite in Australia. We were invited to a dwarf throwing competition after the first time we played the song. They're the extremes though. Generally audiences are pretty similar all over.

So what's the best gig you've ever had?

There've been a few great ones. We sold out our first headline show in Vicar Street in Dublin this year - It's a thousand seater so that was brilliant. We also recently supported Jason Manford for three nights at the Hammersmith Apollo which was great fun. Though the stand out best gig was probably when we were miss-booked for an Irish traditional musical festival in Cork earlier this year. We were on between two balladeers. We played to about 300 hundred people on hay bails who went from total confusion at the start of the gig to a standing ovation at the end.

And what about the worst?

We were all part of a university sketch group who utterly bombed at the Theatre Royal in Drury lane at a tribute to Mo Mowlam to a crowd of two and a half thousand politicians and dignitaries. We were performing a sketch about Hitler and accidentally suggested that Neil Kinnock was Nazi. We finished the sketch with a jazz-hands big song and dance number and were met with total silence. It was rough.

Ouch. Moving back to now: What can audiences expect from your London dates this December?

It'll be the last ever performance of our 2010 touring show Too Fast For Love, so we're pulling out all the stops. Basically, it's a great big silly rock & roll show. Think tight pants, screaming guitar solos and a lot of rock posturing. Kind of like Mötley Crüe but without the budget for pyro.

Nice one! Any plans for 2011?

We're going to be taking our new show Caged Heat to Australia for a three month tour. Then we'll be all over Ireland and the UK for the summer right up until the end of Autumn. Keep an eye on our website www.deadcatbounce.ie and we'll let you know.

Cool. Cheers guys, thanks for answering all our questions!